I thought we buried the truth in the Nevada desert ten years ago. But last night, an anonymous text proved some ghosts don’t stay dead. What I saw on that screen might cost me my life.

Chapter 1: The Burner

The prepaid phone in my bottom desk drawer hadn’t made a sound in eight years.

When it suddenly buzzed at 2:00 AM, the cheap plastic rattling against the wood sounded like a gunshot in the empty clubhouse.

I froze. My knuckles turned white around my glass of cheap bourbon.

The air in the room suddenly felt thick, heavy with the smell of stale beer, motor oil, and old leather.

Nobody had this number. Nobody alive, anyway.

I pulled the drawer open. The rusty metal hinges whined, scraping against the dead silence of the room.

The screen glowed an unnatural, harsh blue in the dark office, casting long shadows across the walls.

Just one unread message. An image file.

My thumb hovered over the screen. It wouldn’t stop shaking.

I pressed open.

The breath rushed out of my lungs, and the bottom fell out of my stomach.

It was a picture of a shallow, freshly dug trench out in the baked Nevada dirt.

Laying right next to the edge was a silver Zippo lighter with a chipped skull emblem.

Jax’s lighter.

The exact same lighter I watched fall from his pocket before we shoveled the red dirt over his unmoving body back in 2016.

A text bubble popped up right beneath the photo.

You missed a spot, Prez. Let’s talk about the price of silence.